Many things had been said in this post that are not related to the main question. Being atheist or religious doesn't matter at all in this question, because, for example, many of the astronauts are religious. Also the religions we have now are mainly earth-centered (no geocentric), that is, are contextualized. But if in the future, if we have to live in other colonized planet, moon, and in the case we found intelligent life, the proselytizing and no-proselytizing religions will have to "adequate to the new times", or will dye. That's a natural result of the evolutions of the religions; most of them, after its beginning have large evolution age, then a climax and finally "plateau" stage with lesser changes, although some could have another evolution age, another climax and another "plateau" or stable age.It's probably that some religions develop aversion to the space travels and come to consider it "abomination", and then, if it comes to happen that the earth, for example, must be abandoned for any reason,some of those religious could prefer stay and dye for religious reasons, though that doesn't be an official believe of the religious system. That's possible. But definitively, some religions and some mainly atheistic politic systems like socialism have the same ultimate goal: improve the living conditions of the human race, although they use different ways and different focuses. Finally, there are some premises to take in to account:

Religions are part of the humanity, like love, like hate, like faith, like violence, like art, like music, like speech.

Being atheist is opposite to be religious

Being atheist is not synonym of believe in science.

Being religious is not synonym of DON'T believe in science.

Then an atheist and a religious could believe both in science, although the atheist doesn't believe in the super-natural.

My conclusion: In a space travelers society, the things won't be so different from now, because the intrinsic nature of the mankind has not changed. We could develop a higher sensitivity for the nature and environment, but that doesn't change our nature, just or mind.

The contamination to our world have not stopped to day because religious matter, but for power and money power. Some said that Hitler was catholic; don't really understand what they are they meaning with that. Hitler was ocultist and tried to reestablish the old german pagans cults. But that doesn't means that he did what he did be cause he was ocultist, he did it because he wanted POWER.

I'm a religious, but also believe in science, and think that believing in God, gods or something super-natural is something that science can't reach, can't prove or disprove, because it belongs to the kingdom of the faith. And I as religious know that I don't have the true about everything, but it result a contradiction to me when somebody says: "I believe in science and there's is no god because you can't prove that god exists", like if somebody can do that with observation, experimentation, and making predictive models. I think is more honest to say: "I believe in science and don't believe in god" for philosophical or practical reasons, for political ideology or whatever, but don't because its existence can't be proved, because science will never do that (at least for now) because our comprehension of the universe and the quantum physics is still very limited and in some cases, just theoretical.

Steven Weinberg said, "Without religion good people do good things and bad people do bad things, but for a good person to do bad things that takes religion"

Stalin was an atheist.

And...? He also trained as an orthodox priest.

Stalin was just part of the "bad people".

What makes you so sure? How do you know what is good or bad? How do you know who is good or bad? How are you able to decide when a good person is doing something bad, or a bad person is doing something bad? Does a bad person ever do something good? How do you know?

What makes you so sure? How do you know what is good or bad? How do you know who is good or bad? How are you able to decide when a good person is doing something bad, or a bad person is doing something bad? Does a bad person ever do something good? How do you know?

I have no religion, but I do feel what's good and bad, I just have my own definition.

In a society there are rules we have to follow (rules chosen by the majority), to give everyone "limited" freedom. I believe that where my liberty ends, someone else's liberty begins. If I take too much, someone else loses his or hers. If I take away anyone else's liberty unjustified by the society, it's the society that should punish me. So I see good and bad as a balanced relationship between people. Let alone.. if I hit someone and he or she is in terrible pain, it's not difficult to feel and see that it's wrong.

And about good and bad, it's all gray, no one is really fully bad or 100% good.

What makes you so sure? How do you know what is good or bad? How do you know who is good or bad? How are you able to decide when a good person is doing something bad, or a bad person is doing something bad? Does a bad person ever do something good? How do you know?

I have no religion, but I do feel what's good and bad, I just have my own definition.

That is a very human answer. Virtually everyone has their own definition. In his book, "How to Win Friends & Influence People," Dale Carnegie goes on at length how even the worst people often see themselves as good, even much of the rest of the country disagrees. I could point out that Benedict Arnold is remembered in the U.S. as a traitor, but as a hero in Great Britain. So, it is important to know what definition someone is using before arguing that someone or something is good or bad.

Sigurd wrote:

In a society there are rules we have to follow (rules chosen by the majority), to give everyone "limited" freedom. I believe that where my liberty ends, someone else's liberty begins. If I take too much, someone else loses his or hers. If I take away anyone else's liberty unjustified by the society, it's the society that should punish me. So I see good and bad as a balanced relationship between people. Let alone.. if I hit someone and he or she is in terrible pain, it's not difficult to feel and see that it's wrong.

So, is morality merely a popularity contest? If the majority decide that ransacking homes and killing people without a trial is OK, does that make it OK? If the majority decide that making sport of executing me for any or no reason is good, does that make it good?

Sigurd wrote:

And about good and bad, it's all gray, no one is really fully bad or 100% good.

That makes the earlier quote about religion's role in good or bad difficult to parse.

There are indeed always different opinions and point of views about good and bad. But in history it's often about who wrote it.. I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of these differences and we shouldn't, as with being different in so many things, it gives the opportunity to test (and many will fail) to learn and achieve new things. But in many cases it's also useless and related to violence. But it will (as far as I can foresee) always be part of us.

Pooua wrote:

So, is morality merely a popularity contest? If the majority decide that ransacking homes and killing people without a trial is OK, does that make it OK? If the majority decide that making sport of executing me for any or no reason is good, does that make it good? .

I would say it's not alright, but if the majority decides otherwise... Then I'll share my other opinion, but I can't change it in that case. The majority, if we like it or not, either decides or lets someone else decide for them (by agreeing or inaction), one thing the majority decided in many countries is to give minorities special rights(however majority also has the power to overrule it by simply being with more people to fight in worst case). Basically everyone has indeed their own definitions, including within all religions. And if a new religion is born or an existing one transforms itself and the majority decides to follow it, it may end up being a disaster as well.

So it requires a few who create/have ideas and others to either support it or not. If too many people become ignorant and do not speak out... or some people are very clever and psychopathic without any respect to other life, and find a way to force or trick the majority to be against each other (divide and conquer).. we can be in a very difficult situation for all of us.

So I think society is all about balancing rights, a balance between what I want to do, and what I can't do, so that it can be the same for all of us. However it's balancing and I think there is no single solution or perfect answer. But I think this already has less to do with religion. As religion is also chosen by the people who follow it, while content wise it's different, the results (from a society balancing point of view, not in general) are the same.

And about good and bad, it's all gray, no one is really fully bad or 100% good.

That makes the earlier quote about religion's role in good or bad difficult to parse.

To add to this part, I mean we all think we're doing good (or on sometimes on purpose bad for others), but what I do good for myself and a few others, might be bad for someone else. It's all relative. And sometimes.. I try to do good for myself.. only by not realizing that it's bad, but in lots of cases I may never know and continue with false assumptions.

In the end, I think we all believe what we want to believe, as we'll never be able to verify everything we hear and see etc. So we're just trying to do our best, at least I hope most are

So, is morality merely a popularity contest? If the majority decide that ransacking homes and killing people without a trial is OK, does that make it OK? If the majority decide that making sport of executing me for any or no reason is good, does that make it good? .

I would say it's not alright, but if the majority decides otherwise... Then I'll share my other opinion, but I can't change it in that case.

I take the view that morality is independent of human opinion; right and wrong, good and bad, are things we discover, not invent. It is possible for the whole world to be wrong, no matter how strongly each person feels about their values.

Sigurd wrote:

The majority, if we like it or not, either decides or lets someone else decide for them (by agreeing or inaction),

Decides what? To deny rights and privileges, to be sure, but society is either complying with the rights that people already have or it isn't complying. Society is not the source of these rights, nor of morality.

Sigurd wrote:

one thing the majority decided in many countries is to give minorities special rights

No, society decided to observe rights for these minorities; whether the minorities actually have those rights or not is a different matter.

Sigurd wrote:

So it requires a few who create/have ideas and others to either support it or not.

If the majority are the source of morality, then by definition, contrary ideas by individuals would be immoral. Hence, we would enter a stagnant period in which morality became the average of everyone's opinions.

Sigurd wrote:

As religion is also chosen by the people who follow it, while content wise it's different, the results (from a society balancing point of view, not in general) are the same.

I'm told that people don't choose their religion, so much as they are born into it. Most people are of whatever religious persuasion they happened to have available to them as a child. I suppose this is true of many human behaviors, as most people don't think very far outside their specialty, which usually isn't religion or academics.

Anyway, religion is an expression of morality, a way of communicating the spiritual world view of a group. People then build society from it. That's the idealistic view. The pragmatic view would say that religion is molded by society's experiences, expectations and desires. That doesn't mean that society necessarily changes what religion teaches as morality, but it does mean that society changes how religion goes about its functions. I've found that when society differs too much from the teachings of a church, the church usually stops talking publicly about those issues, though it may continue to hold them.

Decides what? To deny rights and privileges, to be sure, but society is either complying with the rights that people already have or it isn't complying. Society is not the source of these rights, nor of morality.

Punishing and forcing others to follow, is indeed separated from where these values come from. It's just a way of agreeing so we don't start killing each other etc. And I think on individual level, the idea about good and bad can differ a lot more than on society level, as that's (that = the individual level) the root of it. So in general I agree with you, but I may express it differently. Society can help to halt those who have a way other idea about it and harms others.

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No, society decided to observe rights for these minorities; whether the minorities actually have those rights or not is a different matter.

correct , I agree

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If the majority are the source of morality, then by definition, contrary ideas by individuals would be immoral. Hence, we would enter a stagnant period in which morality became the average of everyone's opinions.

Well, source of morality not for everyone, I wouldn't call it source. But the society halts those who wants to offer their wife to a volcano for example, but only to a limited amount of agreed rules, as we can't agree on so many things.

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I'm told that people don't choose their religion, so much as they are born into it. Most people are of whatever religious persuasion they happened to have available to them as a child. I suppose this is true of many human behaviors, as most people don't think very far outside their specialty, which usually isn't religion or academics.

I guess that's true and values and ideas change even at those who do not think a lot about it beside what they are used to from the previous generation, often just step by step, generation by generation.

I guess I can conclude that it's all on individual level, and honestly, I don't know the real source of good and evil, just the way I feel it and the way I like it I guess it's part of our biological need to stay alive, have food, etc..

There are indeed always different opinions and point of views about good and bad. But in history it's often about who wrote it.. I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of these differences and we shouldn't, as with being different in so many things, it gives the opportunity to test (and many will fail) to learn and achieve new things. But in many cases it's also useless and related to violence. But it will (as far as I can foresee) always be part of us.

Pooua wrote:

So, is morality merely a popularity contest? If the majority decide that ransacking homes and killing people without a trial is OK, does that make it OK? If the majority decide that making sport of executing me for any or no reason is good, does that make it good? .

I would say it's not alright, but if the majority decides otherwise... Then I'll share my other opinion, but I can't change it in that case. So I think society is all about balancing rights, a balance between what I want to do, and what I can't do, so that it can be the same for all of us. However it's balancing and I think there is no single solution or perfect answer. But I think this already has less to do with religion. As religion is also chosen by the people who follow it, while content wise it's different, the results (from a society balancing point of view, not in general) are the same.

Your statement Sigurd, that we should go according to the majority, even when you feel that it is wrong, is the basis of Fascism, Communism, and Socialism. It is a great example of the derivation of evil from moral relativity, and athiesm.I can't scroll anymore down in this post, so I'll finish in another post.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

Your statement Sigurd, that we should go according to the majority, even when you feel that it is wrong, is the basis of Fascism, Communism, and Socialism

That's not what I say, I don't say "we should", there is a difference between observation and what I prefere. It's (in my opinion) that the majority has the power to change things and that they in most cases decide, OR do nothing (but I see doing nothing as also deciding, out of indifference, fear, etc)

This as much as that a smaller number of people who decide, can lead to an authoritarian / dictatorship. It's not all about the extremes, but somewhere in the middle;

Stalin, Lenin (under whom was founded the Chekha, the secret police that became the NKVD under Stalin and later the KGB, and operated in the same fashion as its later incarnations), Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. all derived their fundemental sense of (im)morality from athiesm. They murdered hundreds of millions (literally) because they believed fundamentally believed that individual life, ownership, and liberty were subject to the decision of the State.

A government with the support of the People (for example, there is no question that Hitler had the support of the majority of German people, during the majority of his regime) has the right to take away other people's liberty. This idea, of the State having the right to take away other people's liberty cannot exist if people get their liberty from God. If my right to life and liberty is God-given, then no one, even a majority, has the right to take it away.

On the other hand, if there is no God, then right and wrong are relative, and therefore meaningless. In that case, the individual can't say that his idea of what is right is better than the idea of the majority of what is right, and the person with the strongest army or the majority determines what is right. To the Germans, anti-semitism was Right (see the book "Hitler's willing executioners - ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen). To the Lenin and Stalin's followers, and the rest of the communist murderers, it was Right to murder and take away the possessions of hundreds of millions in order to create a better society for everyone. And for socialists, it is Right to take away people's possessions to better the life of the general society.If there is no God, there is no Right and no Wrong. If there is an omnipotent, omniscient God who involves himself in the day to day, instant by instant matters of this universe, the universal Right and Wrong are dictated by God. You can believe in God and not get his message correctly (Islam, for example), but you will at least be able to believe in the concept of Right and Wrong.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

Last edited by SuperShuki on Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:33 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Your statement Sigurd, that we should go according to the majority, even when you feel that it is wrong, is the basis of Fascism, Communism, and Socialism

That's not what I say, I don't say "we should", there is a difference between observation and what I prefere. It's (in my opinion) that the majority has the power to change things and that they in most cases decide, OR do nothing (but I see doing nothing as also deciding, out of indifference, fear, etc)

This as much as that a smaller number of people who decide, can lead to an authoritarian / dictatorship. It's not all about the extremes, but somewhere in the middle;

"the majority has the power to change things"Not true. The group with the most power has the power to change things. In true Democracies, the majority does not have the power to take away people's life, and possessions for the benefit of the whole. That is the definition liberty. And the fundamental principle behind liberty is that it is God-given. That's the principle that the United States is founded upon: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created [by God] equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

What are is the purpose of Government? To secure the rights given to man by God! Not to bring benefit to man, but only to secure those rights. That is the fundamental belief of Democracy. God is not incidental to Democracy. God is the foundation of Democracy.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

all derived their fundemental sense of (im)morality from athiesm. They murdered hundreds of millions (literally) because they believed in they fundemantally believed that individual life, ownership, and liberty were subject to the decision of the State

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If there is no God, there is no Right and no Wrong.

I have a total different view than yours. In my opinion you're wrong. That's your religion and believes, certainly not a fact.I'll retract myself from this topic as religion and your views can not be discussed with facts and no common agreements can ever be found, My opinions where based on how large groups of people interact, not about religion etc. And your comments about Atheism, Socialism, etc attack a large group of people, (I have no religion myself). Therefor I refuse to continue this discussion as this goes beyond what I find acceptable, it's offending.

As an Admin I'll keep this topic open as I'm part of the discussions, if an other admin is offended or sees your comments as inappropriate, he can lock/remove it as he or she desires.

I am not attacking people, I am attacking ideas. There is no reason anyone should be offended. I'm sorry that you are offended. But there is an objective Right and Wrong, and that is not based on my opinion. It should be, and is, based on objective reason. Objectively - there is no basis for liberty without God. What reason do you have for liberty that is not based on God?

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous